to will to think of it is already to have thought of it, yet there is mental activity involved in every process of thought a mental power exercised, a faculty of some sort exercised. Nor is it a power altogether beyond our own control. We can direct our thoughts, can govern them, can turn them, as we do a water course, that will flow somewhere, but whose channel we may lead this way or that.

§ IX.-USE AND ABUSE OF IMAGINATION.

Influence upon the Mind. As to the benefits arising from the due use and exercise of this faculty, not much, perhaps, is requisite to be said. It gives vividness to our conceptions, it raises the tone of our entire mental activity, it adds force to our reasoning, casts the light of fancy over the sombre plodding steps of judgment, gilds the recollections of the past, and the anticipations of the future, with a coloring not their own. It lights up the whole horizon of thought, as the sunrise flashes along the mountain tops, and lights up the world. It would be but a dreary world without that light.

Influence on the Orator.- By its aid the orator presents his clear, strong argument in its own simple strength and beauty, or commands those skilful touches, that, by a magic spell, thrill all hearts in unison. There floats before his mind, ever as he proceeds, the beau ideal of what his argument should be; toward this he aspires, and those aspirations make him what he is. No man is eloquent who has not the imagination requisite to form and keep vividly before him such an ideal.

On the Artist. By its aid the artist breathes into the Inanimate marble the breath of life, and it becomes a living soul. By its aid, deaf old Beethoven, at his stringless instrument, calls up the richest harmony of sound, and blind old Milton, in his darkness and desolateness, takes his magician's wand, and lo! there rises before him the vision of that Para

dise where man, in his primeval innocence, walked with God.

On other Minds. Nor is it the poet, the orator, the artist, alone, that derive benefit from the exercise of this faculty, or have occasion to make use of it. It is of inestimable value to us all. It opens for us new worlds, enlarges the sphere of our mental vision, releases us from the bonds and bounds of the actual, and gives us, as a bird let loose, the wide firmament of thought for our domain. It gilds the bald, sullen actualities, and stern realities of life, as the morning reddens the chill, snowy summits of the Alps, till they glow in resplendent beauty.

On the Spectator and Observer. It is of service, not to him who writes alone, but to him who reads; not to him who speaks alone, but to him who hears; not to the artist alone, but to the observer of art; for neither poet, nor orator, nor artist, can convey the full meaning, the soul, the inspiration of his work, to one who has not the imagination to appreciate and feel the beauty, and the power, that lie lidden there. There is just as much meaning in their works, to us, as there is soul in us to receive that meaning. The man of no imagination sees no meaning, no beauty, no power, in the Paradise Lost, the symphonies of Beethoven and Mozart, the Transfiguration of Raphael, the Aurora of Guido, or the master-pieces of Canova and Thorwalsden.

Errors of Imagination. - Undoubtedly there are errors, mistakes, prejudices, illusions of the imagination; mistakes in judgment, in reasoning, in the affairs of practical life, the source of which is to be found in some undue influence, some wrong use, of the imagination. We mistake its conceptions for realities. We dwell upon its pleasing visions till we for get the sober face of truth. We fancy pleasures, benefits results which will never be realized, or we look upon the dark and dreary side of things till all nature wears the sombre hue of our disordered fancy.

Not, therefore, to set aside its due Culture. All this we

are liable to do. All these abuses of the imagination are possible, likely enough to occur. Against them we must guard. But to cry out against the culture and due exercise of the imagination, because of these abuses to which it is liable, is not the part of wisdom or highest benevolence. To hinder its fair and full development, and to preclude its tse, is to cut ourselves off, and shut ourselves out, from the source of some of the highest, purest, noblest, pleasures of this our mortal life.

No Faculty perhaps of more Value.-It is not too much to say, that there is, perhaps, no faculty of the mind which, under due cultivation, and within proper bounds, is of more real service to man, or is more worthy of his regard, than this. Especially, is it of value in forming and holding before the mind an ideal of excellence in whatever we pursue, → standard of attainment, practicable and desirable, but loftier far than any thing we have yet reached. To present such an ideal, is the work of the imagination, which looks not upon the actual, but the possible, and conceives that which is more perfect than the human eye hath seen, or the human hand wrought. No man ever yet attained excellence, in any art or profession, who had not floating before his mind, by day and by night, such an ideal and vision of what he might and ought to be and to do. It hovers before him, and hangs over him, like the bow of promise and of hope, advancing with his progress, ever rising as he rises, and moving onward as he moves; he will never reach it, but without it he would never be what he is.

§ X-CULTURE OF THE IMAGINATION.

Strengthened by Use. In what way, it is sometimes asked, may the faculty under consideration be improved and strengthened? To this it may be replied, in general, that the ideal faculty, like every other, is developed and strengthened by exercise, weakened and impaired by neglect. There

is no surer way to secure its growth than to call its present powers, whatever they may be, into frequent exercise. The inental faculties, like the thews and muscles of the physical frame, develop by use. Imagination follows the same general law.

Study of the Works of others. -I do not mean by this exclusively the direct exercise of the imagination in ideal creations of our own, although its frequent employment in this way, is of course necessary to its full development. But the imagination is also exercised by the study of the ideal creations of others, especially of those highly gifted minds which have adorned and enriched their age with pro ductions of rarest value, which bear the stamp and seal of immortality. With these, in whatever department of letters or art, in poetry, oratory, music, painting, sculpture, architecture--whatever is grand, and lofty, and full of inspiration, whatever is beautiful and pleasing, whatever is of choicest worth and excellence in its own proper sphere; with these let him become familiar who seeks to cultivate in himself the faculty of the ideal. Every work of the imagination appeals to the imagination of the observer, and thus develops the faculty which it calls into exercise. No one can be familiar with the creations of Shakspeare and Milton, of Mozart and Beethoven, of Raphael and Michael Angelo, and not catch something of their inspiration.

Study of Nature. Even more indispensable is the study of nature; and it has this advantage, that it is open to those who may not have access to the sublime works of the highest masters of art. Nature, in all her moods and phases in her wonderful variety of elements the grand and the lowly, the sublime and the beautiful, the terrible and the pleasing nature in her mildest and most fearful displays of power, and also in her softest and sweetest attractions, is open to every man's observation, and he must be a close observer and a diligent student of her who would cultivate in himself the ideal element. The most gifted

sons of genius, the minds most richly endowed with the power of ideal creation, have been remarkable for their love and careful study of nature.

V

Mistake on this Point. —I must notice in this connection, however, a mistake into which some have fallen in re gard to this matter. The simple description of a scene in nature, just as it is, is not properly a work of the imagina ion. It is simply perception or memory that is thus exer cised, along with judgment and artistic power of expres sion. Imagination gives not the actual, but the ideal. She never satisfics herself with an exact copy. The mere portrait painter, however skillful, is not in the highest sense an artist. The painter, mentioned by Wayland, who copied the wing of the butterfly for the wing of the Sylph, was not, in so doing, exercising his imagination, but only his power of imitation. So, too, when Walter Scott gives us, in the cave of Denzel, a precise description of some spot which he has seen, even to the very plants and flowers that grow among the rocks, that scene, however pleasing and life-like, is not properly a creation of his own imagination; it is a description of the actual, and not a conception of the ideal. Much that is included under the general title of works of the imagination is not properly the production of that faculty.

Coleridge has made essentially the same remark, that in what is called a work of imagination, much is simple narra tion, much the filling up of the outline, and not to be attribu ted to that faculty.

The Student of Nature not a mere Copyist. The tru study of nature, is not to observe simply that we may copy what she presents, but rather to gather materials on which our own conceptive power may work, and which it may fashion after its own designs into new combinations and results of beauty. Nature, too, is full of hints and sugges tions which a discerning mind, and an eye practised to the beautiful, will not fail to catch and improve. It is only